Equity and Excellence : Banging Pots and Silence (in minutes from 8/24)

Please take seriously the oversight you provide on conference attendance and funding of certain programs. The message it sends to teachers can be confusing for them.  For instance, you approved in January teacher attendance at an Equity workshop and then in March you proceeded to rubber stamp approval of a NCUST survey because the last board had approved it.    I want to share an example of how lack of oversight can result in unintended change.

The high school principal collected powerpoint slides to preserve what teachers had learned following the January conference.  Those slides among other things discussed and advocated for equity grading.

Before I share what equity grading is, I was assured by the Administration last year that CUSD does not permit equity grading.

What is equity grading?

What I could piece together from online, is that it is a form of grading that is intended to measure student’s mastery of material while accounting for hardships external to school (i.e., sports, employment, one parent, poor home environment, etc.) and to measure students mastery without penalties for behavior such as failing to do homework, listen in class, etc.

How is it done?  Not grading homework, permitting “retesting”, ignoring/accepting disruptive behaviors, and remediation of assignments. 

It can result in teachers treating students unequally based on their race, social-economic background, familial status, etc.  It can cause bias, such as teachers not permitting a student with an A- to retest for an A, but a student with a D  to retest, etc.

Is CUSD testing or performing equity grading? Some teachers allow retesting and do not provide homework but instead ungraded classwork— BUT their confusion about policy is understandable when the Board continues to ignore the distractions posed by supplementary material not aligned with curriculum and conference attendance at Equity workshops.

NCUST is another example of poor messaging to teachers: instead of focusing on the basics, let us focus on everything else. Please  ask what is the Administration going to do with NCUST audit data (not to mention the other surveys and pre and post assessments). Ask will it improve academic achievement?

Hits: 9